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LSD enhances the emotional response to music

ARTICLE PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY • AUGUST 2015

Impact Factor: 3.99 ■ DOI: 10.1007/s00213-015-4014-y

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Frederick Streeter Barrett

Johns Hopkins Medicine
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David J Nutt

Imperial College London

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Helen Valerie Curran

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Robin L Carhart-Harris

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Available from: Mendel Kaelen
Retrieved on: 23 August 2015

Psychopharmacology

DOl 10.1007/s00213-015A014-y

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ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION

LSD enhances the emotional response to music

M. Kaelen * 1 • F. S. Barrett 2 • L. Roseman 1,3 • R. Lorenz 3 • N. Family 4 • M. Bolstridge 1 •
H. V. Curran 5 • A. Feilding 6 • D. J. Nutt 1 • R. L. Carhart-Harris 1

Received: 4 February 2015 /Accepted: 29 June 2015
© Springer- Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Abstract

Rationale There is renewed interest in the therapeutic poten-
tial of psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide
(LSD). LSD was used extensively in the 1950s and 1960s as
an adjunct in psychotherapy, reportedly enhancing emotional-
ity. Music is an effective tool to evoke and study emotion and
is considered an important element in psychedelic-assisted
psychotherapy; however, the hypothesis that psychedelics en-
hance the emotional response to music has yet to be investi-
gated in a modem placebo-controlled study.

Objectives The present study sought to test the hypothesis that
music -evoked emotions are enhanced under LSD.

Methods Ten healthy volunteers listened to five different
tracks of instrumental music during each of two study days,
a placebo day followed by an LSD day, separated by 5-7 days.

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article
(doi:10.1007/s00213-015-4014-y) contains supplementary material,
which is available to authorized users.

El M. Kaelen

m.kaelen@imperial.ac.uk

1 Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Division of Brain Sciences,
Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK

2 Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit, Johns Hopkins School of
Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

3 The Computational, Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging
Laboratory, The Centre for Neuroscience, Division of Brain
Sciences, Imperial College London, London, UK

4 Psycho linguistics and Language Department, Faculty of Social
Sciences, University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany

5 Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, University College London,
London, UK

6 The Beckley Foundation, Beckley Park, Oxford, UK

Subjective ratings were completed after each music track and
included a visual analogue scale (VAS) and the nine-item Ge-
neva Emotional Music Scale (GEMS-9).

Results Results demonstrated that the emotional response to
music is enhanced by LSD, especially the emotions
“wonder”, “transcendence”, “power” and “tenderness”.
Conclusions These findings reinforce the long-held assump-
tion that psychedelics enhance music-evoked emotion, and
provide tentative and indirect support for the notion that this
effect can be harnessed in the context of psychedelic-assisted
psychotherapy. Further research is required to test this link
directly.

Keywords LSD ■ Serotonin 2A receptor ■ Psychotherapy •
Psychedelic • Music • Emotion

Introduction

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a “classic” psychedelic 1
drug that elicits profound changes in consciousness with a
remarkable potency (Schmid et al. 2015; Passie et al. 2008;
Nichols 2004). Although much emphasis has been placed on
their hallucinogenic properties, psychedelic drugs have a
range of other interesting psychological effects. For ex-
ample, they have marked effects on emotion, which is

1 The word psychedelic is derived from combining the Greek words
psychs meaning “mind” or “soul” and delos, meaning “to manifest” or
“make visible”. In addition to LSD, other dmgs considered classic psy-
chedelics include psilocybin (the major psychoactive constituent of magic
mushrooms), mescaline (a psychoactive constituent of peyote and San
Pedro cacti) and DMT (a major psychoactive ingredient in the Amazo-
nian brew ayahuasca). All these dmgs share the property of being ago-
nists at the serotonin 2A receptor. The use of the term “psychedelics” in
this paper refers specifically to classic psychedelics such as those listed
above.

Published online: 11 August 20 15

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Psychopharmacology

one of the reasons why they were used in psychothera-
py in the 1950s and 1960s. The dominant therapeutic
model at the time maintained that by dismantling “ego
defences”, psychedelics facilitate emotional release (i.e.
“catharsis”) and insight (Busch and Johnson 1950;
Leuner 1983; Cohen 1970). Broadly speaking, this ap-
proach is still adopted today in clinical studies with
psychedelics (Bogenschutz et al. 2015; Johnson et al.
2014; Gasser et al. 2014a, b; Grob et al. 2011).

Music is a classic means of evoking emotion, and like LSD,
it has also been used as an adjunct to psychotherapy (Koelsch
2014; Moore 2013). Music has accompanied ceremonial use
of psychedelics for many centuries (Nettl 1956), was a staple
component in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in the
1950s and 1960s (Bonny and Pahnke 1972; Grof 1980) and
remains so today (Bogenschutz et al. 2015; Johnson et al.
2014; Gasser et al. 2014a, b; Grob et al. 2011). It has been
proposed that listening to music during a psychedelic experi-
ence is useful for (1) encouraging the relinquishment of
control, (2) facilitating emotional arousal and release,
(3) promoting the occurrence of “peak” or spiritual-
type experiences, (4) directing and/or structuring the ex-
perience and (5) stimulating the imagination (Bonny and
Pahnke 1972; Grof 1980). Profound spiritual- or
mystical-type experiences were reported by a majority
of participants in a study with another psychedelic drug,
psilocybin, while they listened to emotionally evocative
music (Griffiths et al. 2006, 2011). This raises an im-
portant question: what is the role of music in producing
such profound psychological experiences?

The significance of music in psychedelic-assisted psycho-
therapy has previously been discussed (Eagle 1972; Gaston
and Eagle 1970; Bonny and Pahnke 1972; Turek et al. 1974)
but has never been investigated in a modern placebo-
controlled study. The present study sought to address this
knowledge gap by testing the hypothesis that the emotional
response to music is enhanced under LSD. Participants lis-
tened to five different instrumental music tracks on each of
two study days: a placebo day followed by an LSD day, sep-
arated by 5-7 days. The question “How emotionally affected
were you by the music?” was asked immediately after
each track and served as the study’s primary outcome.
To probe more specific aspects of participants’ emotion-
al experiences during music listening, the Geneva Emo-
tional Music Scale (GEMS-9) was also used (Zentner
et al. 2008). The GEMS-9 has been developed to mea-
sure a range of emotions that can be experienced during
music listening, and this was completed after each mu-
sic track. It was predicted that it would be specifically
emotions related to “transcendence” that would be en-
hanced, i.e. feeling “fascinated and overwhelmed” and
“feelings of transcendence and spirituality”, as defined
by the GEMS-9.

Methods

Approvals

This study was approved by the National Research Ethics
Service (NRES) London — West London and was conducted
in accordance with the revised declaration of Helsinki (2000),
the International Committee on Harmonisation Good Clinical
Practice guidelines and NHS Research Governance Frame-
work. Imperial College London sponsored the research which
was conducted under a Home Office licence for research with
schedule 1 drugs.

Recruitment and screening of participants

Participants were recruited via word of mouth and gave writ-
ten informed consent before participating. They were briefed
on the general experimental procedures, but no information
regarding hypotheses of the experiments was shared. Prior to
study enrolment, all participants were screened in a clinical
research centre at the Hammersmith hospital campus of Im-
perial College London (the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research
Facility, WTCRF). Demographic information was recorded
and medical history taken. A physical examination was per-
formed, including electrocardiogram (ECG), routine blood
tests and blood pressure measurement. A psychiatric assess-
ment was conducted and participants gave full disclosure of
their drug taking histories. Participants completed the Beck
Depression Inventory (BD1) (Beck et al. 1961) and the 60-
item Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Five-Factor Inven-
tory (NEO-FF1) personality scale (McCrae and Costa 1987)
and were properly briefed on the study and the potential drug
effects.

Key exclusion criteria were as follows: <21 years of age,
personal history of diagnosed psychiatric illness, immediate
family history of a psychotic disorder, an absence of previous
experience with a classic psychedelic (e.g. LSD, mescaline,
psilocybin/magic mushrooms or DMT/ayahuasca), having ex-
perienced a persistent adverse reaction after psychedelic drug
use, pregnancy, problematic alcohol use (i.e. >40 units con-
sumed per week) or a medically significant condition render-
ing the volunteer unsuitable for the study.

Drug dosing

One thousand micrograms of LSD freebase (certified 99.4 %
purity) was reconstituted with 10 ml saline and sterile filtered,
yielding a 100 pg:l ml sterile solution. Since a primary moti-
vation of the study was to determine a safe and appropriate
dose of LSD for a subsequent neuroimaging study, the dosage
of LSD varied among participants, i.e. one received 40 pg,
two 50 pg, six 70 pg and one 80 pg. For each administration,
the appropriate amount of LSD solution (e.g. 0.7 ml=70 pg)

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was transferred to a 1 0-ml syringe and made up to 10 ml with
saline. The 10-ml solution was then infused intravenously
over a 3-min period, followed by a 60-s infusion (“flush”)
with 10 ml saline.

Study setting

Both study days were performed at the WTCRF at the
Hammersmith Hospital. All experiments took place in a
clinical room, consisting of a hospital bed, physiological
monitoring equipment and en suite facilities. Since psy-
chedelics have the potential to induce psychological dis-
tress, the clinical conditions of the room were adapted
to promote feelings of comfort and safety, i.e. the light-
ing was dimmed and the room was decorated with soft
furnishings (Johnson et al. 2008). The setting was iden-
tical for all study days.

Experimental procedures

Participants were carefully prepared for the drug experience at
screening, and the study was conducted in accordance with
guidelines for the safe management of psychedelic drug ses-
sions (Johnson et al. 2008). After screening, eligible partici-
pants attended the two study days, with at least 5 days in
between, and were told they would receive LSD on one of
these two occasions but were not told which. Placebo (10 ml
saline) was always administered on the first day, thus avoiding
potential carry-over effects (e.g. residual psychological ef-
fects) of LSD. Participants were blind to the condition (i.e.
daig or placebo) but the researchers were not. Volunteers ar-
rived at the research centre between 10.00 a.m. and 1 1 .00 a.m.
on testing days, were briefed about the study procedure, gave
a urine test for drugs of abuse and pregnancy (where relevant)
and carried out a breathalyser test for recent alcohol use. A
cannula was inserted into a vein in the antecubital fossa by a
medical doctor and secured. Subsequently, volunteers were
encouraged to close their eyes and relax in a reclined position
before a 1 0-ml solution of saline alone (placebo) or containing
LSD was intravenously infused over a period of 3 min. Blood
pressure was measured prior to dosing (baseline), 45 min after
dosing and at the end of the study day (prior to discharge).
Heart rate was recorded at regular intervals, together with self-
ratings of the subjective intensity of the drug effects on a scale
of 0 (“no effects”) to 10 (“extremely intense effects”). These
measurements were taken every 1-5 min during the first
45 min post-infusion and then continued in intervals of ap-
proximately 30-45 min until the end of the experiment. Dur-
ing the initial 45-min post-infusion, participants were encour-
aged to relax with their eyes closed and maintain a supine
position while listening to music by the ambient music artists
“Stars of The Lid”. This music was only played during the
initial 45 min and not during the subsequent psychological

testing. Participants reported first noticing subjective drug ef-
fects between 5 to 15 min post-dosing, and these approached
peak intensity between 45 to 90 min post-dosing. The duration
of a subsequent plateau of drug effects varied among individ-
uals but was generally maintained for approximately 3 h post-
dosing. Psychological tests were performed within this time
frame. Five music tracks were played to each participant
during each session at the following time points post-
dosing (minutes: mean, SD): 44±17 (track 1), 101±25
(track 2), 139±33 (tracks 3 and 4) and 250±53 (track
5). Once the subjective effects of LSD had sufficiently
subsided, participants completed a 29-item questionnaire
enquiring about the drug’s subjective effects (see
Carhart-Harris et al. 2012). Following this, the study
psychiatrist assessed the participant’s suitability for dis-
charge. Participants remained in the research centre for
an average of 6 h post-infusion. The results of other
psychological tests performed during the study are pub-
lished elsewhere (Carhart-Harris et al. 2014).

Stimulus selection and task design

Two playlists were compiled (A and B), each containing five
different music tracks. One version was heard on the first
study day and the other on the second, with the order of the
playlists counterbalanced across participants. The emotional
potency of the two lists was balanced based on pre-study
ratings from a separate sample of nine participants. Pre-
ratings were provided for 16 instrumental music tracks of
the classical, neo-classical, ambient and new-age genres using
the GEMS-9. In addition, the tracks were also rated for general
liking and familiarity. It was from the subsequent ratings that
ten tracks were selected for the study. Specifically, tracks were
chosen that produced the highest liking and lowest familiarity,
and a two-tailed paired t test confirmed no significant differ-
ences between the playlists on liking, familiarity and GEMS-9
scores. The final five tracks selected for each playlist consisted
of neo-classical and ambient music composed by the follow-
ing four contemporary musicians: Greg Haines, Olafur
Arnalds, Arve Henriksen and Brian McBride (see Table 1).
Each music track and all rating scales were presented via
PsychoPy presentation software (Peirce 2008). Before listen-
ing to a music track, participants were instructed to close their
eyes and relax. Music was played via high-quality stereo
headphones (Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro), and participants
were allowed to adjust the volume via remote volume control.
When the music ended, a pre-recorded voice instructed them
to open their eyes. They were then presented with the question
“How emotionally affected were you by the music?” Partici-
pants gave ratings via a continuous visual analogue scale from
0 (“not at all”) to 100 (“very much”). Following this, a
digitalised and shortened version of the full GEMS, the
GEMS-9, was presented (Zentner et al. 2008). A particularly

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Table 1

The two playlists utilised for the study

Stimulus

Artist name

Playlist A

Playlist B

Track title

Duration

Track title

Duration

1

Greg Haines

1 83 Times

09:08

Azure

14:14

2

Brian McBride

Toil theme part 2 & part 3

05:11

Supposed Essay on the Piano

04:10

3

Olafiir Amalds

The Wait

03:35

Autumn Day

03:26

4

Brian McBride

Melodrames Telegraphies Part 2

04:12

Melodrames Telegraphies Part 1

05:25

5

Arve Henriksen

In the Light

05:29

Leaf and Rock

02:17

important instruction given prior to completing the question-
naire was that participants should rate how he or she person-
ally felt in response to the music and not what he or she
thought the music was trying to communicate to them or
how he or she felt in general. The GEMS-9 consists of nine
items or categories of emotion, with sub-items presented in
brackets: wonder (filled with wonder, dazzled, moved), tran-
scendence (fascinated, overwhelmed, feelings of transcen-
dence and spirituality), power (strong, triumphant, energetic),
tenderness (tender, affectionate, in love), nostalgia (nostalgic,
dreamy, melancholic), peacefulness (serene, calm,
soothed), joyful activation (joyful, amused, bouncy),
sadness (sad, sorrowful) and tension (tense, agitated,
nervous). Each item was scored from 0 to 4: 0 = “not
at all”, 1 = “somewhat”, 2 = “moderately”, 3 = “quite a
lot” and 4 = “very much”.

Data analysis

All statistical tests were performed in Statistical Package
for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows, Version
21.0. Scores for the question “How emotionally affected
were you by the music?” for each stimulus were aver-
aged for each subject per condition. A paired two-tailed
t test was performed to test for significant difference
between conditions.

Since the five possible ratings for the GEMS-9 were as-
cribed a relevant number (e.g. 0 = “not at all”, 1 =
“somewhat”) and the resultant data was normally distributed,
two-tailed paired t tests were used to analyse between-
condition differences. Subsequent false discovery rate (FDR)
control was used to correct for multiple comparisons
(Benjamini and Hochberg 1995).

Finally, a Pearson correlational analysis was performed to
evaluate a hypothesised relationship between the peak inten-
sity of LSD’s subjective effects and the intensity of emotional
arousal in response to music under LSD (i.e. the average score
for all music stimuli to the question “How emotionally affect-
ed were you by the music?”) as well as the relationship be-
tween peak drug intensity and increases in the GEMS-9 item
“transcendence”.

Results

Participant demographics

Ten healthy volunteers participated in the study (one female;
mean age=34.2±7.4, range=26-47 years). All had at least
one previous experience with a classic psychedelic drug
(mean estimated LSD uses=65±90, range=0-250) but not
within 21 days of the study (mean last use of LSD=1829±
2348, range=30-5000 days). Self-estimates of other drug use
were as follows (mean, SD, range): weekly alcohol units=9.2
±9.1, 0-26; daily cigarettes=3.5±6.6, 0-20; lifetime cannabis
uses=822±377, 20-1000; lifetime MDMA uses=79± 11 7, 3-
400; lifetime psilocybin/magic mushroom uses=19.5±14, 6-
40; lifetime ketamine uses=51±84, 0-200; and lifetime co-
caine uses=23.1±31, 0-100. Beck Depression Inventory
scores at baseline were 1.9±1.6, 0—4; NEO-FFI scores were
as follows: neuroticism=13.2±6.5, 5-26; extraversion=32±
8, 20^14; openness=31±3.8, 26-35; agreeableness =3 5. 7 ±
4.1, 32^15; and conscientiousness=34.2±6.5, 25^12.

Physiological effects of LSD

Measurements of blood pressure and heart rate under placebo
and LSD are displayed in Table 2. Systolic blood pressure was
slightly elevated under LSD relative to baseline and placebo,
but these changes were not statistically significant after
correcting for multiple comparisons.

Subjective effects of LSD

Subjective daig effects were first noticed between 5 to 15 min
post-LSD and approached peak intensity between 45 and
90 min post-dosing. Drug effects maintained a subsequent
plateau for approximately 3 h and showed a gradual decline
in the following hours. These results suggest that compared
with oral administration of LSD (Schmid et al. 2015; Passie
et al. 2008; Nichols 2004), intravenous administration pro-
duces a quicker onset and (slightly) shorter lasting experience.
Interestingly however, the speed of onset and duration of ef-
fects produced by oral and i.v. LSD are more similar than

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Table 2 Physiological
measurements for placebo and
LSD displayed in rounded mean
values + standard error of the
mean

Systolic blood pressure

Diastolic blood pressure

Heart rate

Placebo

LSD

Placebo

LSDcpr

Placebo

LSD

Baseline

125±5

123±4

72±4

78±4

78±5

77±5

45th minute

120±3

132±6

69±3

76±4

75±4

77±4

1 80th minute

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

65±3

79±5

End

118±3

134±5

68±3

74±4

68±3

74±4

when oral and i.v. psilocybin are compared (Carhart-Harris
et al. 2012; Hasler et al. 2004).

LSD produced a range of subjective effects (see Fig. 3 in
Supplementary material). The five VAS items that were scored
highest under LSD were (in descending order) the following:
“my thoughts wandered freely”, “my imagination was ex-
tremely vivid”, “I felt amazing”, “things looked strange”
and “I felt an inner warmth”.

Effects of LSD on the emotional response to music

(^=0.027), “power” (p=0.027) and “tenderness” (/t=0.027)
(reported p values are FDR adjusted; Fig. 2).

Correlation analyses

A significant positive relationship was found between ratings
of the intensity of LSD’s effects and emotional arousal to
music (r=0.79, n= 1 0, /i=0.006), as well as between the for-
mer and increases in the GEMS-9 factor “transcendence” (r=
0.79, «=10,/?=0.006).

Mean scores for all music stimuli to the question “How emo-
tionally affected were you by the music?” were significantly
higher for the LSD condition (0.71±0.14) than for placebo
(0.51±0.18, t= 3.559, df=9,/>=0.006; Fig. 1).

The effects of LSD on different music-evoked emotions

All nine factors on the GEMS-9 were scored higher in the
LSD condition than placebo. Significant increases were ob-
served for the items “wonder” (p= 0.027), “transcendence”

Very much

Fig. 1 Effect of LSD on music-evoked emotion. Each data point
represents one participant’s average response to the question “How
emotionally affected were you by the music?” The dashed horizontal
line represents the group average for each condition. The lines
connecting the data points demonstrate the individual increases in
emotional arousal to music from placebo to LSD. Participants gave
significantly higher ratings under LSD than placebo (1=3.559, df=9,
p= 0.006), and every volunteer showed some degree of enhancement of
emotional arousal to music under the drug

Discussion

The present study assessed the effects of LSD on music-
evoked emotion. The primary hypothesis that LSD enhances
music-evoked emotion was supported, as was the more spe-
cific hypothesis that emotions related to “transcendence”
would be enhanced by the drug. Specifically, the emotions
“wonder” (i.e. filled with wonder, dazzled, moved),
“transcendence” (i.e. fascinated, overwhelmed, feelings of
transcendence and spirituality), “tenderness” (i.e. tender, af-
fectionate, in love) and “power” (i.e. strong, triumphant, en-
ergetic) showed the strongest enhancement.

The general popularity of music may be due to its ability to
convey and modulate emotion (Juslin and Vastfjall 2008), and
experimentally, music has been employed as a means to reli-
ably evoke and thereby study emotion (Barrett et al. 2010),
including its neurobiology (Koelsch 2014). In therapeutic set-
tings, music has been used with the purpose of evoking, deep-
ening and directing emotion (Moore 2013). The finding that
LSD enhances the emotional response to music reinforces a
long-held assumption that music takes on an intensified qual-
ity and significance under the influence of psychedelic drugs
and that this effect may be harnessed for therapeutic purposes
(Bonny and Pahnke 1972).

Typically, during psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, mu-
sic of the classical genre is played through headphones to
individuals who lie supine on a bed or couch and close their
eyes or wear eyeshades. These conditions are intended to pro-
mote an “inner exploration” where music constitutes the only
external stimulus (Johnson et al. 2008). In such a setting, peak
experiences or spiritual-type experiences are not uncommon

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Fig. 2 Mean plus standard error
values for the GEMS-9 scores for
the complete playlist per
condition. Scores were
significantly higher for the LSD
condition than placebo for the
items “wonder” (p=0.027),
“transcendence” (p=0.027),
“power” (p=0.027) and
“tenderness” (p=0.027).

Reported p values are FDR
adjusted. *p<0.05 after FDR
correction for multiple
comparisons

(Pahnke 1963; Richards 2009; Griffiths et al. 2006, 2011) and
these effects have been found to correlate with sustained im-
provements in well-being and life satisfaction (Griffiths et al.
2008) and increases in the personality trait openness
(MacLean et al. 2011). It is unclear however, how important
music is in determining this.

Emotions of transcendence and wonder are traditionally
thought of as core constituents of peak and spiritual experi-
ences (Maslow 1993; Richards 2009). Thus, the enhancement
of these emotions suggests that the music x LSD combination
may contribute to the occurrence of spiritual-type or peak
experiences. If spiritual-type experiences are predictive of
therapeutic/beneficial effects of psychedelics (Griffiths et al.
2008; MacLean et al. 2011; Garcia-Romeu et al. 2014), and if
the likelihood of their occurrence can be increased by music,
then this would substantiate the view that music is an impor-
tant element in psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Limitations

This study has some important limitations. LSD has previous-
ly been found to enhance suggestibility (Carhart-Harris et al.
2014; Middlefell 1967; Solursh and Rae 1966), and this may
have contributed to the present findings. Participants were not
informed of our hypotheses regarding music listening, but it
would not have been difficult for them to have intuited them.
Thus, participants might have given higher ratings for the
question “How emotionally affected were you by the music”,
simply to reinforce their own expectations or to confirm (their
perception of) the researchers’. The difficulty of maintaining
the study blind (due to the conspicuous subjective effects of
LSD) may have compounded any such biases. Measures to
reduce expectation or increase uncertainty about the

experimental aims could be introduced in future studies, e.g.
by including (1) variable doses of LSD and a larger sample
size to examine dose dependency and (2) an active control or
comparator diug (see Studerus et al. 2012). Randomising or at
least balancing the order of the LSD and placebo sessions
would also be worth incorporating into the design of future
studies. However, it is unlikely that order could have signifi-
cantly contributed to the present outcomes, given that order
effects are typically sensitive to such things as leaming/prac-
tice, fatigue and habituation, and playlists were balanced
across participants and days.

Another significant limitation of the present study is that
we did not assess emotions pre- and post-music but rather
simply asked how much the participant had been affected by
the music. Without pre- versus post-ratings implemented in a
factorial design, the present results may be vulnerable to the
interpretation that they were driven by a general drug effect
rather than a specific effect of music in combination with drug.
The correlation between drug effect intensity and increased
feelings of “transcendence” to music could be construed as
supportive of this interpretation. Alternatively however, stron-
ger drug effects may have simply enhanced a true music x
LSD interaction. The GEMS-9 instructions explicitly request
that the participant rate according to how the music made them
feel and not how they felt in general or what emotions they
thought the music was intended to convey. Thus, while no
formal tests for an interaction between drug and music on
mood and emotion were performed, the questions were inten-
tionally constructed to enquire about the effect of music on
emotion (i.e. the interaction between dmg and music was im-
plicit in the structure of the question). Nevertheless, to prop-
erly investigate an interaction between drug and music on
emotion, future studies incorporating a factorial design (with

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pre- and post-music listening ratings) will need to be per-
formed. The absence of such a design in the present study
prevents us from rejecting the possibility that the results were
driven by a general drug effect.

Finally, it is important to emphasise that this was a pilot
study with a limited sample size. Moreover, only one female
was recaiited, all participants were psychedelic experienced
and only specific music styles or genres were included. Infer-
ences on the present results can therefore not be generalised
beyond the music styles used in the present study, and neither
can they be easily generalised to larger populations. Future
studies could assess the importance of specific genres or styles
of music and the effect of individual music taste in determin-
ing outcomes in response to psychedelics. Similarly, non-
musical “sound/noise” could be included as an additional
control variable.

Conclusions

The results of the present study provide tentative support for
the hypothesis that psychedelics enhance the emotional re-
sponse to music; however, extension studies are required to
confirm and extend the inferences that have been discussed
here. Future studies are warranted to test the importance of
music as a component in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
and to understand how psychedelics enhance the emotional
response to music via their effect on brain activity.

Acknowledgments This research received financial and intellectual
support from the Beckley Foundation and was conducted as part of a
wider Beckley-lmperial research programme. The report presents inde-
pendent research carried out at the NIFIR/Wellcome Trust Imperial Clin-
ical Research Facility. Support for Dr. Barrett was provided by the Na-
tional Institute on Drug Abuse, Grant T32DA07209. The authors would
like to thank Matthew Wall and Nicola Kalk for their help in designing
this study.

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